


Individuation

by PossiblyATrout



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rebuild of Evangelion | Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 16:56:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14877708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PossiblyATrout/pseuds/PossiblyATrout
Summary: In the storm of Fourth Impact, one girl looks inward. Implied Asukyu.





	Individuation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xairathan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/gifts).



She does not know how much time has passed since she left Mark.09.

The air in the cramped confines of the entry plug is still, sterile, almost suffocating in its own right. She still finds herself gripping non-responsive control sticks, and for the first time her blood feels as though it’s set ablaze.

She attempts to calm herself, to take inventory, to quell the churning sea within, yet she grapples and cannot find purchase. For the first time in her brief existence there are no orders. No calls to wait, to suit up, to sortie. Only the numbing emptiness that she sees whether her eyes are closed or open, a growing whirlwind of conflicting and contradictory emotions that threaten to consume her utterly. Old ways clash with new directives, struggling for supremacy.

She closes her eyes, and in the empty silence of the metal cylinder, broken only by her breathing and the occasional buffeting of the wind, she focuses and attempts to gather her thoughts, to stand in the storm. They swarm, scattered, indistinct and formless, an incessant chorus of voices reverberating within her skull, and she feels something which she cannot place.

She attempts to ignore the roiling mass of sound and opens her eyes without truly knowing why, and she abruptly feels detached from the material plane, her body static but her mind elsewhere, elsewhen. She does not find herself viewing the hollow void of Mark.09’s cockpit. She blinks, in this strange state, and takes in her surroundings. Tubes. Pits of orange liquid. The echoes of distant souls playing at her ears.

_NERV_ , she realises.   _Where the Commander is. Where I was. Where I…_

‘Should’, that strange word, ever elusive and demanding, dances in her mind and comes to rest on the edge of her tongue, but there it lingers, withers, wilts as she perceives what lies before her. It is _her,_ herself and not, alike and dislike, suspended in LCL beneath a fragile sheet of glass. Her clothing is strange, her expression distant, but her red eyes bore into the girl’s own, unflinchingly.

_I am Rei Ayanami...but is there another? Another me?_

She recalls the peculiar voice of the pilot who first reached out to her, and her words are summoned to the forefront of her mind and bounce off lonely walls, penetrating, informing, chiding.

_Your original was so much more talkative…_

“Original…”

The word intrigues and perplexes her all at once, and she furrows her brows as she stares at the duplicate beyond the glass whose gaze has not faltered. Tentatively she paces forward, and hesitantly stretches out a hand to this other, this doppelganger. The tips of her fingers caress the glass panelling, and her voice cuts apart the stillness like a sharpened blade.

“There is only me…and yet this is me also. Who are you…who am I? What am I?”

As she speaks, the world seems to shift in a blink.

She starts, thrown off-balance, and finds her hair being blown in an invisible, dead wind that defies sensory perception. She recognises this place, though only vaguely – she came here once, after her birth. The structure is tattered, cratered, exposed to the open air, yet she perceives no light, and despite the dire state of the place there is a presence within it.

“What are you?”

A voice rumbles through the dark, stern and reprimanding, and the girl who calls herself Rei Ayanami finds herself flinching as she looks towards it. She does not perceive any sort of human silhouette; rather, a blood-red slit hangs in the shadows, a razor’s edge of carmine daubed across a canvas of black, and the voice that emanates from it is clinical.

“You are deviating from your path. You are a weapon, an instrument of humanity’s ascension. Straying from your purpose will bring ruin. You know this, and yet you allow yourself to be swayed. Why is that?”

“…Commander.”

She paces forward with festering uncertainty, the heels of her plugsuit digging into the cold ground beneath her feet.

“I carried out my orders – but did not tell me who I am. You did not tell me what I am. You did not tell me of Mark.09’s functions. Was I…a sacrifice?”

The visor glares, motionless in the tenebrous ruin.

“We do as we must for the salvation of those that remain. You lack resolve. Who you are is immaterial – what is paramount is the role you fulfil, a role you have cast aside. This is not free will you have displayed. It is cowardice.”

_Cowardice._

She flinches at the word, feeling her hands unconsciously tighten into fists, gloved fingers digging into her palms.

“If that is what you intended for me,” she asks, her soft tones wavering almost imperceptibly, “then why was I born? Why am I here?”

“Why are you here?”

A new voice sounds across the shifting space. The world seems to melt and reform in an instant, and she finds herself within the walls of her former dwelling above her tank. She starts to feel as though she is small, diminished, the walls themselves threatening to crush her. There, a boy stands amid bare surroundings, white shirt catching shadows in the dim light of the lamp that flares in the corner. His grey eyes seem to pierce through her completely, as though he were addressing the impression from a ghost.

“You’re here because this is all you know. You aren’t her,” the image of the Third Child proclaims, flatly. “I did not save you. You are empty, hollow, a pretender wearing her skin as a mask.” His stare is cold, penetrating, and she feels a chill gnawing at her innards. “You exist to take orders – it is all you are.”

The faded voices assail as the boy stares, and she steadies herself but they are strong, almost too strong. Her voice is faded and muffled, speaking against the growing howl of a hurricane.

“I saved you. I brought you back.”

“You simply did as you were told. Don’t delude yourself. This is what defines you – and this moment is merely an oversight. Why are you attempting to be someone you’re not?”

Within the mindscape her breath hitches in her throat. She casts her eyes downward, away from the pointed glare of the apparition before her, and confusion creeps in like a thief. The sanctuary of her own mind is being invaded, and no exit beckons. She can only ask.

“Then…if I am not Ayanami, what am I? What do you know?”

The boy looks right past her, his countenance carved from stone, silent and immovable. She cranes forward, her hand twitching.

“Can you tell me…”

She reaches, and her hand only grasps at the air, the Third Child vanishing and her words dying without an answer as her vision pinwheels yet again. She peers into darkness, and now she is back where she was only moments before. She looks about herself, confused, and wades clumsily over skulls that tower over her, hollow sockets gazing pitilessly downward. She awkwardly crests a hill – and beyond that as she stumbles forward, footfalls ringing atop a rusted cross lying amidst a field of bone, her eyes fall upon a red pinprick suspended in the soundless air by an unseen hand.

She advances, and a compulsion overtakes her. She reaches her hand out to touch the blood-red sphere before her, and as the tips of her fingers graze its surface the mass warps, shifts, changes until she sees her face reflected back, grinning and eyeless, and by now the chorus of voices is a cacophony. She feels _something –_ Disgust? Fear? Of these she knows not, not truly, but she guesses regardless – force its way inside her head, a sliver of nausea burrowing its way into her brain.

When the thing talks she hears herself, and also another – the other Child? She is not sure, but the churning head of the abomination speaks, words streaming into her head with the force of a thunderclap, and the girl feels like she is drowning.

“You know why you exist – you are simply in denial. Why are you attempting to abandon your responsibility for personal gain?”

The crimson miscreation overshadows her completely, sneering as its words emanate from motionless lips, and faced with its overwhelming enormity she feels utterly infinitesimal.

“You are a vessel. A shell crafted to lead mankind to its final state, to its pinnacle. You refuse your purpose, and there is nothing for you – you know this. Yet you would choose to die unfulfilled and listless, instead of answering your calling?”

The roar is ear-splitting, all-consuming, and she clamps her eyes shut as she tries vainly to make sense of the maelstrom. Disembodied voices reprimand, deride, interrogate, and she hears herself among them as she desperately attempts to stand her ground, her head heavy and her mind racing as the titanic, smirking reflection scrutinises her.

“I did not know. It…was not in my orders.”

“And yet you believe you have the right to reject your destiny? To deny the will of your maker, the essence of your existence?”

“I…”

She hears her voice scoff, venom and bemusement ringing through the nothingness.

“You prioritised a fleeting desire to live, a slight moment of futile rebellion, over the task that you were ordained to enact. Such _hubris_.”

Amid a churning engine of thought she feels as though she is placed beneath a spotlight, and the shadows of her insecurities seem to burn with dark light as they revolve, examine, accuse. The Commander, the Third Child, the twisted yet familiar monstrosity that was the 12th Angel speaking in her own voice  - words and memories slip in and out of her head in sequences, whispers from phantoms.

_You exist for the sake of NERV._

_You are nothing like her._

_Return. Join with us. See your purpose realised._

“I am I. Yet so is she. If that is the case…then what am I?”

 

_Do as you are instructed. That is all._

_We can do fine without her. She’s not Ayanami…_

_You are needed, yet you condemn this world to oblivion and damnation. Rectify your mistake._

“I followed my directives. But I did not know. To live…is that a mistake?”

 

_In this world, sacrifice is necessary._

_What makes you think you can imitate her?_

_It is a temporary impulse. Nothing more._

“What am I…”

 

_You are a soldier._

_You are a shadow._

_You are **empty.**_

She looks down and everything feels inverted, distorted, uneven. Even her hands look distant, and she recedes into the encroaching blackness.

“…What am I doing? What should I…”

As the din threatens to engulf her entirely, she clenches her hands to her chest, clamping her eyes shut as the blustering gale of her thoughts reaches a crescendo – but amid the tempest a single declaration breaks through the din, forceful and emphatic.

_What do **you** want to do?!_

She blinks, and as a faint gasp escapes her the spectres diminish, and the assault on her senses crumbles. In a moment, the incessant barrage is silenced. From the infinity that now stretches out beneath her, the cloying darkness finds itself recoloured – a flood of white consumes her surroundings as that voice, those words, linger within the expanse of her inner self.

She cannot associate a name or a face with a voice so ferocious, but she rifles through the contents of her mind. She deduces, ponders, calculates in the yawning void. She wanders through her thoughts, trying to at least give these persistent words an image. They are far, so very far from what she knows, but she tries.

For a reason that mystifies her she finds herself thinking of the diminutive lamp in her makeshift home. She ponders, and discards it, casting her mind further forward to the mayhem of the battle she had only recently endured. It is more like what she tries to imagine, but it is _too_ chaotic, _too_ relentless. Voracious pillars of flame stretching into a red eternity.

Her thoughts halt.

_Red._

She thinks again of the bleeding sky, the darkened earth being torn asunder all painted in that same hue, A maelstrom of rending wind and tattered earth – and something else. Something clearer.

She finds herself latching onto that, and in trying to find a balance between two extremes her mindscape responds accordingly. A scarlet flare blossoms into existence, towering and raging, standing in the shape of that bright titan, and she is drawn to it, inquisitive and enthralled in equal measure. She stands before it, examines it, and hears the constant hiss of hungering flame.

Beneath its fiery gaze, she feels dwarfed – but something beyond her understanding urges her to step forward. The amorphous monolith regards her, and as she cautiously approaches the mighty construct howls in warning. The sound deafens and presses upon her very bones, but she persists. Carefully she forges onwards, and the imposing sentinel stares down at her. She is unsure of what to do, and the blazing giant takes a few ponderous paces towards her. The arena of her mind quakes with every step, and instincts boiling within her are demanding flight.

But as she looks up into the face of the creature that stretches up and onwards, a torch flaring in the vastness of this space, the needle of anxiety slowly slips from her ribs. She is transfixed – and in being such, she is determined. The two stand in quiet repose, only the hum of the blaze disturbing the calm. She does not know what to do – but she is compelled to beckon it closer, to feel its touch, and in so doing gain understanding, to name that which she desires so fiercely to describe.

So she does the first thing that comes to her mind, and extends her hand.

The titan shifts slightly as it examines her with a searching gaze, looks towards her outstretched hand – and as its frame billows, it promptly shrinks as it leans in. For just an instant it stands at the same height as her, four jade eyes framed by flame staring directly into her own through the firestorm, and it contracts inwards, coalescing into a perfect point of red light.

Even now, she hears the blaze, but it is lower, softer – a reminder of its power, yet also inviting.  She takes the red beacon of light in her hands, feels its heat, becomes truly aware of how passionately it burns. At last, looking at the ardently burning ember cupped between her palms, the words come to her unbidden.

_Fire…yes. Fire. Loud_. _Fierce. But bright. And…_

_…warm?_

Before she can be certain, there is a sudden jolt, and both within and without she winces as she is abruptly catapulted back into reality. A shudder rattles the frame of her entry plug, then another as it finally comes to rest atop dead earth.

She thinks a moment, and initiates the jettison mechanism for the plug’s hatch, the panel rocketing off in a high arc towards an azure sky before landing somewhere she can’t see with dull, percussive finality. Desolation greets her and quickly makes a home, a hollow wind reverberating off the plug’s exposed inner walls and carrying wisps of red sand with it.

She collects her thoughts, her breathing soft, and finally releases her grip from the controls. She stares fixedly at the barren, sterile plain that stretches out to meet the horizon, sees the stitched and defaced and clouded surface of the Moon cartwheeling overhead.

She is sure of so very little, but within her rests one immutable certainty. Impulse, not orders, led her to this place. She is not sure why she is here. She is not sure if she _should_ be here. But something within her finds resolve.

She reaches beneath her seat and retrieves a standard-issue NERV haversack, and it dangles limply from her clenched fist as she looks ahead, a broken Gaia calling her name.

The low groaning of a moribund world is the first sound to greet her ears as she leaps from the fallen pod, and she surveys it all, this crimson ruin, this grand and decaying emptiness.

She is not entirely certain where she has to go. But she is certain of who she has to find.

The girl who once called herself Rei Ayanami slings her bag across her shoulder, and steps into the wilderness.


End file.
